The present invention relates to a system of modular structural elements for building walls, particularly adapted for interiors.
In the technical field of building construction, engineers, architects and interior designers undertaking new-construction, renovation projects, or interior design work, are faced with the problem of optimizing the sub-division of building interiors, according to numerous factors including the type of building, the intended use of the building, and the aesthetic effect that one may desire to create when designing the building interior.
When building offices, for example, it is frequently desired to have large internal rooms which are subsequently sub-divided or partitioned according to the specific requirements of the occupants. In other commercial buildings such as showrooms, which typically have one or more large, undivided internal spaces, it may be subsequently desired to erect one or more interior walls to delimit one or more office spaces or meeting rooms. Similar problems are faced when renovating buildings to be used for a purpose other than that for which they were originally designed, and also when restoring old buildings that have planning restrictions or preservation orders placed on them, whereby the structure of the building can only be modified to a very limited extent.
In such cases, in homes and in workplaces, internal walls are erected to sub-divide the interior building space. However, it is frequently desired to erect internal walls which can be easily modified, to allow for any possible future changes in the use and/or aesthetic requirements of the building interior.
Modular internal walls have been developed which comprise a plurality of mutually interconnectable blocks. Known modular blocks for erecting internal walls typically comprise parallelepiped blocks, having a first vertical edge provided with a female connection groove, and an opposite and parallel vertical edge provided with a male connection element for connection to the female connection groove of an adjacent block. The upper and lower horizontal edges of the adjacent modular blocks have mutually facing connectors for mutually coupling the blocks horizontally.
However, such known modular blocks for building internal walls have some serious drawbacks, not least of which is the fact that they are often difficult to erect and require skilled personnel and special tools, equipment and cements or adhesives for installation. Furthermore, known modular blocks for building internal walls cannot be readily utilized to create special optical and decorative effects in the interior spaces of the building. Moreover only a limited number of geometrical configurations can be adopted when building internal walls with the known modular blocks, which cannot always be readily used, for instance, to erect walls having a curved configuration.